Those fearing that the Sept. 1 relocation of the St. Elizabeth Central emergency room will translate into longer wait times for ambulances need not worry, area health officials maintain.

On Tuesday, Franciscan St. Elizabeth Health officials announced that the emergency department at Central, along with the acute medical and intensive care units, will move to St. Elizabeth East in a consolidation expected to save millions of dollars a year.

That move leaves two emergency care centers — St. Elizabeth East on Creasy Lane and IU Health Arnett on Veterans Memorial Parkway at McCarty Lane. Both are on the east side of the county, relatively far from the hearts of Lafayette and West Lafayette.

But the shift will have little impact on patients who call 911 in life-or-death situations, health professionals agree. Most of those patients already bypass the central campus in favor of those eastside hospitals.

"The patients we bring here to Central are nonsurgical candidates," said Darrell Clase, director of Tippecanoe Emergency Medical Services. "Basically, anybody with a life-threatening injury we've been transporting to East or IU for several years already."

Decades ago, the primary function of an ambulance was to offer transportation to medical care. Modern-day ambulances, however, are essentially portable emergency rooms, Clase said. When ambulances arrive on the scene, paramedics begin performing the same techniques that would be performed if that person entered through the doors of an ER.

The most critical period for a patient facing a potentially fatal injury is not the time it takes to get to the hospital.

"The key time period is how long it takes them to get to you," said Terry Wilson, regional president and CEO of Franciscan St. Elizabeth Health. "That hasn't changed."

Tippecanoe Emergency Ambulance Service, operated jointly by St. Elizabeth and IU Health, has four ambulances covering Tippecanoe County at all times. Each is at staging points chosen to maximize response times. A fifth ambulance is available 12 hours a day, and two chase cars with lifesaving equipment are available on an on-call basis. Mutual aid agreements with other local emergency response agencies help fill the gaps if those ambulance units are occupied.

One full-time ambulanceis stationed at the Central campus. Because no ambulances will be relocated through the recently announced consolidation, the amount of time it takes an ambulance to reach a patient will not change.

"In my opinion, there might be a few cases that it would make a difference in," he said. "But I'd think normally if the ambulances have somebody severely injured they'd transport them to East anyway."

Lafayette police Lt. Jim Taul said the move will prove a minor inconvenience in getting medical clearance for citizens too intoxicated to be placed at the jail.

"If somebody tests too high, the jail will not take an intoxicated person ... so an officer has to go to the ER to get medical clearance by a doctor," Taul said. "They used to just swing by Central on the way through. Now they'll have to go out east to get that done."

But in terms of emergency services — Central's emergency room is the go-to spot for victims of violent crime in downtown Lafayette — Taul doubts the move will have much effect.

"We'll go wherever they'll take them," Taul said.

One area of concern for emergency response workers is that hospitals have no control over patients who decide to drive themselves to the emergency room.

Typically, those drivers are not facing a life-and-death issue and can afford a few more minutes of driving time, Anderson said.

"Most times someone goes to an emergency room, they're not true emergencies," Anderson said. "It's a fever or a sore throat."

In such cases, the urgent care facility to be established at the soon-to-be vacated Central campus "will work just fine," Anderson said.

On the other hand, it's not uncommon for patients to drive themselves to the ER in an attempt to avoid ambulance fees.

"What we find staggering is the number of heart attacks that come walking in through the door," Clase said. "We really wish we could get the education out there (that) you need to call 911. That's what we're here for."

Lisa Decker, vice president of marketing and business for Franciscan St. Elizabeth Health, said the hospital will continue a marketing push to urge potential patients to err on the side of caution when considering whether to call 911 or drive to an ER.

"People have got to realize if they are in an urgent emergency situation, they have got to call 911," she said. "We'll continue to remind people … that is critically important."

St. Elizabeth Central will be losing its emergency and acute care services in a cost saving move.
Mike Livingston